Death of a brother, death of a Marine

Jersey mother loses one son as second is called home from Iraq

Shortly before 6 a.m. in Iraq yesterday, Marine Jaymes Swain was told to call home.

He phoned his mother in Millville and was told his older brother, Marine Lance Cpl. Harry Swain IV, had been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Monday.

"He called a quarter to 6, and she had to give him the news. He took it very hard," said Donald Kolibaba, a neighbor of Swain's mother, Deborah Lago.

Harry Swain, 21, was on his second tour of duty in Iraq and was due home on leave in less than two weeks.

Lago learned of her son's death Monday. Two Marines came to her home and found out from Kolibaba that she was at work. They waited until she returned. When she did, Kolibaba, with the Marines behind him, went to her door.

"She saw me first," Kolibaba said yesterday. "She saw something on my face. She asked me what's wrong. I didn't say anything. Then (the Marines) just walked behind me. She said, 'Oh, my God, which one?' when she saw them."

Another neighbor, Walter F. Silvers, said he saw the Marines coming to Lago's house and knew something was terribly wrong.

"Yesterday I saw the soldiers, the Marines," he said. "I said, 'This is bad.' I knew something was bad at that particular time."

He lamented the timing of Swain's death.

"They just had their election on Sunday, and here this kid gets killed the next day," Silvers said.

Swain, a machine gunner with the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, is the 42nd service member with ties to New Jersey killed in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003.

He grew up with his mother in Millville, Cumberland County, while Jaymes Swain, 19, spent much of his childhood with his father, Harry Swain III, in nearby Vineland. The brothers stuck together while both were stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

A 2001 graduate of Millville Senior High School, Harry Swain IV enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"He wanted to go over there. He wanted to fight for his country," said Kolibaba, who is serving as a spokesman for the family. Lago did not want to speak with the media yesterday, and the victim's father, a police sergeant in Vineland, could not be reached.

Kolibaba said Jaymes Swain, a sniper with the 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, is on his way home. Lago, he said, does not mind if he remains in the military, as long as he is no longer in harm's way.

"She wants him home now," the neighbor said. "I don't think she wants him to go back into combat. I don't think any mother would after losing a son like that."

Kolibaba said that as a teenager, Swain IV enjoyed combat videos and liked to wear black T-shirts with his hair long.

At Millville High School, his former teachers all said he was "quiet," but they had differing remembrances of him as a student.

"He was a great student. He was really a pleasure teaching because he was very intellectual," said physics teacher Frank Ferzetti, who taught Swain for two years and learned of his death Monday. "I was devastated because to hear about a kid you taught, you knew, it's hard to take. It brings it close to home."

David Sharpless, who taught Swain physical education for three years, described him as "a gentlemanly student, one who was always prepared, would do what you asked him to."

German teacher Stephanie Tomlin said Swain was a good student, but one who didn't always apply himself. She said he was a voracious reader who liked Dungeons and Dragons and science-fiction novels, but didn't strike her as someone who would join the Marines.

"That really surprised me because he didn't seem like a mainstream kid," she said.

At Vineland police headquarters yesterday, Chief Mario Brunetta issued a statement saying Lt. Swain, a 22-year veteran of the force, is on funeral leave.

"Most of us watched young Harry grow from a child to a fine young man," Brunetta said. "He is a hero in our eyes and we consider him one of our own. This news is devastating. With that being said, we thank this young man for who he was and what he sacrificed for us and all Americans."